Samsung YP-P2 (8GB, black)

Summary: Well, this player is available in Canada, but I'm not sure about US. Here is my review (I actually have it).

It really looks nice and was smaller than

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Summary: Well, this player is available in Canada, but I'm not sure about US. Here is my review (I actually have it).

It really looks nice and was smaller than expected. The GUI looks really nice but won't look good with your own pictures uless they are dark. Sound is pretty good as well as video. The side button are OK but it makes it impossible for one-hand operation, but I'm okay with that. Easy to use espacially if you've used touch screens before. Using bluetooth is quite simple, too. It's great that I can answer calls without touching my phone. Most dissapointing thing though it that sometimes it lags and is slow, and the GUI can get old a tiresome after a while, no matter how nice it looks. Overall excellent player, highly reccommended of you're looking for something that isn't from Apple.

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Summary: I just bought this player yesterday on sale at Bestbuy for the very cheap price of $150 (the 4gig model).

Already I can pinpoint a few problems with the player

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Summary: I just bought this player yesterday on sale at Bestbuy for the very cheap price of $150 (the 4gig model).

Already I can pinpoint a few problems with the player and some great advantages. I'll begin with the cons and move on the the pros of the device. The software that's provided with the device is slow and not very user friendly. Moreover, there is very little you can do in the way of options or customization with the interface or features. Converting video is a pain! I'm a pretty proficient computer user with years of experience with peripheral devices including varioud MP3 players and PDAs, but I tried numerous times with numerous file types and file sizes but could not get the file to transfer to the player and play. The device is very limited in terms of video playback and though it is primarly and audio player, video should be just as big an asset on such a beautiful screen. I'm still trying to figure out how to transfer videos and I might just have to call Samsung for assistance. The other disadvantage to point out is it's touchscreen. The touchscreen is not accurate what so ever. On numerous occasions, I had to repeat my inputs to get the player to perform the desired actions. The bright LED light at the bottom of the device is nothing more then decoration and doesn't serve any practicle purpose. It would have been nice if it would be used as a "home" button like on the Touch.

On the plus side, this is an audio player and the sound quality therefore should be the most important thing. I'm happy to report that the sound quality is bar none. Samsung's sound engine technology is really impressive. If you're an audiophile, this MP3 player can't be beat (take that iPod!). The look of this palyer is also a huge pro. It's sleel and stylish and is the perfect size for everyday use being neither to big or to small and the player does have a nice heft to it. The screen is bright, clear and crisp. The included videos on the MP3 player played beautifully (if only I could get mine to work) and the included pictures were displayed beautifully. The GUI is nice, but I'm hoping that in time Samsung will release more options for themes and icons. The music player itself is well designed with many visualization effects including album art and track info. My favorite feature of this device and the primary reason I bought this over other players is the P2's ability to navigate through files through a file browser. I sort my music by folders and for me accessing that folder hierarchy is important becuase it's how I organize my music. The automatic library features of most MP3 players (including the iPod) really pisses me off becuase often, my music files are not properly organized because of missing ID3 tags. With the file browser I can organize my music how I want.

Over all the player does music very well but I'm still trying to figure out how to transfer videos. The touchscreen is a little bothersome but I blame that on a necessary learning curve and besides, the many dedicated tactile controls really ease the operation of the device.

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Summary: So ive owned the p2 for about a week now and im very glad of this product, the 2gb costs nearly the 4gb of the new ipod nano and this ...

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Summary: So ive owned the p2 for about a week now and im very glad of this product, the 2gb costs nearly the 4gb of the new ipod nano and this mp3 believe me is much better.

I want to say that this mp3 is not a clone of the ipod touch, for you smartheads out there saying that it is. this was announced before the ipod touch, apple rushed with giving out the ipod touch because an touch screen mp3 player would make evreyone suprised.

I agree with the score that cnet put because when the p2 came out, it had unresponsive touch screen, it wasnt this cheap and it didnt have half the features it has now after the second wave. let me give a full review.
Note that this is my first review of anything ever so please be kind when commenting. And another thing i live in Sweden so dont expect evreything to be spelled exactly right.

Right now on to the review

Design:
The design is absoulutley gorgeous. it looks sleek and nice, my friends were absoulutely amazed when they first saw how it looked. but still its a fingerprint magnet and it can be annoying when theres alota light that reflects on the screen because you cant see, but there have to be ALOT. The buttons on the sides is pretty good for using it without taking it out of youre pocket. it feels more comfortable in hand because of the size and the little extra weight that it has ( note its still lighter then the Touch)

UI:
The cosmos menu system is amazing, it looks so good and my friends were like WOW when they saw it. you can put the my skin or matrix menu to show the background picture more. the ui isnt as fun as the ipod touches for cycling through photos and stuff but still pretty good. It uses double tap wich can be annoying sometimes and sometimes a blessing. The icons after the 2nd wave look much better and 3d like now. The touch screen is very responsive now so that is something you dont have to think about. By the way its now multi-touch like the touch so that can maybe be something that people want to have. I still love this mp3 with the Uni-Touch for rotating and doing stuff.

The firmware updates that is always coming to the p2 is the biggest ever made for an mp3 player. They are adding alot of stuff evrey time. let me put some sections.

Music:
It sounds Nice with the Dnse 2.0, It has 10 Eq presets and an custom Eq with 7 bands (2 more than the normal number) and a 3D and bass setting. It has street and clarity modes wich fixes upp the music alot.
You can make 5 playlists on the go pretty fast.

New:in the second wave the album art and visuals have gotten bigger, Theyve put a neat feature here that you can view Lyrics that is very nice. They've added A-B And Play speed wich can be useful sometimes. You can now cycle through album art.

Fm Radio:
It has an inbuilt Fm radio with the best response iv'e ever seen. it has 30 presets and a very good scanning mode. Sadly you cant do anything else while listening to the radio.

New: you can Fm record

Bluetooth:
You can use this to connect to bluetooth headphones. Cutting the cord is pretty nice but the radio cant be used with this because it uses the cord of the headphones normally for the reception.

New: Now you can connect to a phone through bluetooth and answer calls and talk in it with the mic on the bottom of the P2. You can file transfer too without any restrictions so you can get all the songs youre friends have on their phones.

Video:
The video lookes so good and colorful on this Lcd. It is just fun to watch episodes and it has bookmarks for the video.

New: nothing new that im aware of.

Pictures:
Pics looks gorgeous on the p2. The lcd is so cool and you can do a hortizonal stroke with the finger to change between them, annoyingly theres a time lag for this.

New: You can now rotate the pics and zoom in them with touch gestures. And crop them for background images.

Datacasts:
This is like podcasts but not live. This downloads rss feeds through Samsung media studio evreytime you connect it to the pc after putting some sites there.

Prime Pack (Extras):
It has a text viewer that is pretty good you can make the fonts bigger. A world clock, Calendar , adress book so that you can call from the p2.

New: theyve added 3 pretty fun games, The text viewer can now be rotated, changing the backgrounds and font color for better viewing. An alarm have been added.

As you see many features have been added to the p2 to make it better.

Well this is the end of my review. I hope it will help you buying this product. im utterly happy with mine and i think that you will be too. Thanks for reading

Best regards/ Syrish

Ps. i just put the ipod touch in comparison because many are confused between those two and they're often compared. Dont tell me that the touch is better after jailbreak and bla bla bla because that is not how it came fabriced. I think both of them are good mp3 players and pretty nice actually but i just wanna break the habit of buying ipods for the premium price when there's alternatives out there

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Summary: First off, I don't see why people who haven't even had this player in their hand are rating this product already. I bought it then less than a ...

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Summary: First off, I don't see why people who haven't even had this player in their hand are rating this product already. I bought it then less than a week later sold it on amazon. This is a nice player, no doubt. Bluetooth, sound quality, bright display, stylish, what more could you ask for? Well, how about an accurate touchscreen? It seemed I had to keep repeating my strokes or touching an icon multiple times just to get it right. Frustrating. When using the radio you can't use your bluetooth headphones. When i put my images it had no feature to rotate them so I could not put a nice picture in the background because it was always the wrong way. I hated the samsung studio software (the application to sync your player). It took up a lot of memory, is a bit slow on transferring files, and I couldn't figure out how to convert video files into the right type for the player. I thought it would do it automatically but when I opened up the player to see the video it would freeze on me. I wish Windows Media Player, Samsung, Winamp, or any other application would do something like the iTunes backwards delete mode. If I delete something off my library then it is automatically deleted when I sync my iPod. The player does not have the option to delete the file without the use of a cpu, so you can imagine having to hook it up then search through the over 1,000 songs I had loaded on there to delete a couple files I didn't want anymore. So, overall it's an outsanding piece of device. However, it is definitely lacking some user-friendly features or at least some where people with only average computer knowledge can work at it without hacking or changing things. Definitely not for those who have a large library...good for working out though when I did it with my bluetooth headphones!

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Summary: Samsung's latest mp3 based on the Intuitive Touch Screen-YP-P2. It is considered one of the latest and as well as with the best design among all Samsung mp3 players....

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Summary: Samsung's latest mp3 based on the Intuitive Touch Screen-YP-P2. It is considered one of the latest and as well as with the best design among all Samsung mp3 players.

Basically this mp3 is so called of a counter to the Apple Ipod Touch. But if the comparisons made between iTouch and P2, the winner will be P2 instead of iTouch.

Firstly, in terms of design and interface, I can say 100% that iTouch will be the top rated among the mp3 players so far in the market. But on the other hand if talking about features, sound system, battery condition, well, P2 will be more outstanding.
P2 generally is a very normal mp3 player which doesn't come with the built-in WI-FI. But just imagine wad for do you really need a WI-FI? You can't use it if you are not in any access points or using the Wireless@SG. So that means actually it doesn't really serve the function for an mp3 to have the WI-FI. You are paying the price to listen to songs or watch some video clips, not paying the price to use Wireless Internet Access!

On the other hand about the sound system, so far in the mp3 market there are only 2 brands with the best sound produced. One of them is iRiver, while the other is Samsung. iRiver is using the SRS(Surround Sound) effect while Samsung is using their own DNSe(Digital Natural Sound Effect). Comparing to mp3 players like iPod, Sony and Creative, their sound systems are way too far from Samsung's DNSe technology. Their sound is just the built in normal equalizers, which every mp3 players will have it, even Samsung. But, for Samsung's sound, they provide you with the enhanced EQ Quad Band and as well as the 3D and Bass enhancement. These may not look very appealing, but it sounds superbly when you adjust the different sound system. It's just like if I want more bass for this or that song, I can actually set the bass to medium or max, rather than selecting Classical, Rock, Jazz or Pop these standard and fixed EQ. For an mp3 player, the most important thing is to hear the sound and not the looks. Definitely iPod and Sony mp3 players have nice design and colours, but what's the point of buying that just for the looks, might as well get the dummy set and look at it for 24hrs, but if you get any Samsung mp3 or the P2, you can hook up your earpiece for 24hrs for the beautiful and soothing sound system!

Talking about the features of P2, it comes in varieties. What does an iTouch have? Music, video, photos and WI-FI. That's all! But what does P2 has is with the additional radio, radio recoding, Bluetooth, flash games, text files and alarm clock as well. For music, it supports MP3 and WMA format, doesn't need to convert to AAC or whatever other formats. That simple for music. For videos, the P2 supports either the SVI or WMV format. For these 2 formats i need to clarify clearly as i saw some users who doesn't really know how to convert the video files.

There is this function known as the Datacast as well. Similar to Podcast, users can syn RSS Feeds from internets or syn stuffs like CNN new or the BBC news or whatever and so on. For people who listen to Podcasts, the Samsung P2 comes with it as well. No doubt.

First of all for WMV format, it can only read WMV codec 9 and not any other codecs. So far I haven't seen any codec 9 for WMV released in the internet. While for the SVI format, it's very simple. That's the format you can simply convert your video files into and playback on your P2. The converter is provided to the consumer free when purchased the P2 and it is actually in the Samsung Media Studios itself. For video converting, do not plug in your mp3 into the computer first! Import your video files into the video tab under the Samsung Media Studios. The video files that it supports for converting are:

1) .avi
2) .mpeg
3) .wmv
4) .asf
5) .rmvb (real media video)
6) .svi
7) .mp4
8) .smf
9) .mov

You can import any of these 9 video formats in for conversion. And for the video quality the bit rate and the frame rate can be set up to user's choice. For a normal 1hr30mins .avi movie to convert to .svi format, it can go to min 150+MB but stil with high quality playback. That's the advantage of the video converter. While for iTouch or any iPods, the video can only support the common .avi or the .mp4 format which is very big in terms of file size. What I suggest is, if you do not know anything about video conversion or the video sub codecs, then don't get the iPods because there's nothing free in the world unless you can find cracks to those applications.

The built in Bluetooth technology is very advanced for Samsung as it saves those people who do sports and they want to listen to music at the same time. The Bluetooth function serves 3 usages. One of them is the wireless music streaming which the user can listen to songs without using any earpieces. The other usage will be making phone calls using the BT. This sounds crazy but ok it definitely works. As long as your handphone's Bluetooth pairs with the P2, any time you can make use of P2's Bluetooth to call out or receive calls. While the last function of the Bluetooth is that it can send songs directly from mp3 to handphone or handphone to mp3. Regardless of any phones. And one most IMPORTANT thing to clarify, when listening to radio, the Bluetooth doesn't work! As radio is streaming through infra-red technology while only songs and video can be stream via the BT for P2.

While the user interface is totally touch screen with the on/off button, volume and the hold button at the side only. Downloading of songs, pictures and videos and etc is all done by copy and paste, in another words drag and drop. It is very convenient. Less than 10mins all your songs will be in, to the beautiful player that you have, and from there you can enjoy the high quality of Samsung's slice of music.

Lastly comes into the battery information. For audio, just purely listening to music, it can last you for 35 hrs. That's a rough gauge, but it depends mainly on the LCD disply, and the volume of the player. Definitely if the player is playing at max volume, battery playback is lesser. While for the video is around 5 hrs solely. One more will be the Bluetooth usage of playing back. When listening to songs via the Bluetooth, the battery can only last for around 15hrs.

Well, it just seems like Samsung YP-P2 has great seduction to any users who want to buy a mp3 player. What do you expect from such a tiny player with all funtions built in. Tempting enough to get it. Like what i mentioned earlier on, go for the features and the sound system, don't go for the design, it is useless no matter how nice your mp3 looks, but it is useful if how superb your mp3 sounds.

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Summary: The main thing that made me get this was the stereo bluetooth. The fact that everything i use day to day has bluetooth (i.e. my phone, laptop, desktop, home ...

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Summary: The main thing that made me get this was the stereo bluetooth. The fact that everything i use day to day has bluetooth (i.e. my phone, laptop, desktop, home stereo, portable stereo and headphones/headset) so it just allowed more flexibility of use then any other mp3 player on the market. When im on the go i can put on a song, or when im at home tune into the local radio, even can watch a movie in the middle of a boring lecture. Another factor i loved is the ability to awnser phone calls that are coming though my phone (although the update is coming in December i believe). My friends who own the iphone and/or ipod touch when i connected it to my stereo back at my place were astounded with the audio quality and the bluetooth factor. and said if they known the p2 exsisted they would have bough that over any ipod or similar competitors. Although eveything good has their flaws, my music library is about 6k sougs.. so i was only able to put a fraction of them on but thats fine i dont really need to listen to all 6k of them in one go. also something like a dock would be nice like the ipod has or the zune but its not a must eather so im fine with it. over all great player with out the wires.

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Summary: The player is actually quite small for something with a screen this size. I love the simple, clean cut design. The player isnt as wide as the ipod touch so ...

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Summary: The player is actually quite small for something with a screen this size. I love the simple, clean cut design. The player isnt as wide as the ipod touch so it can be operated using one hand (unless you're trying to get the side buttons). Sound quality is great and the 9-band user EQ is a huge plus. The screen is very crisp too.

Another nice thing is that you can drag&drop files. Although there is a program called Samsung Media Studio, you can use the player perfectly well without it. I only use it to convert videos to SVI format,

The UI needs some getting used to. I thought it was very inaccurate and unresponsive until I fugured out a "technique" for using it. You have to use the tips of your fingers for more precise input. Now I get much less errors during input, although there still is the occasional mistake.

Overall, this is a great alternative the iPod touch.

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Summary: I love this player. I bought a 8GB when it first came out here in Canada at a premium but returned it because it didn't live up to the ...

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Summary: I love this player. I bought a 8GB when it first came out here in Canada at a premium but returned it because it didn't live up to the hyper originally. I turned around and got a Ipod Touch 8GB instead.

It's been 10 months and I have decided to give the P2 another chance since we are on v5.02 now for firmware, and I really miss the audio quality.

So...cons first.
The screen scratches very easily, and the included